After wandering for two or three months abroad, Cecily and Diana
discovered that all roads lead to Rome. In Rome, therefore, they had
been established for a week, when Cecily strolled one day alone,
towards the garden of the Villa Medici.
It was Rose Summers, with whom, after the night of the dinner-party,
Cecily had spent some weeks, who had urged upon Cecily this plan of
travel. For some time previous to the break between Cecily and her
husband, Diana had not been strong; she was made the excuse for the
closing of the Westminster flat in the following autumn. Rose arranged
the explanation. For the sake of her sister’s health, Cecily must at
once take her abroad, while her husband, who, for business reasons
connected with his work, could not go so far afield, had decided to
divide the period of her absence between the country and a stay in
Paris.
It was thus that Mrs. Summers strove to put a screen between an
inquisitive public and the ruins of one more domestic hearth.
“They’ll talk, of course,” she observed, “and try to look through the
chinks in the boarding; but as long as they don’t see too plainly,
their talk doesn’t matter much.”
Cecily had acquiesced indifferently. “Just as you please,” she said.
“All I want is to get away--and I shall not come back. But I quite
agree that there’s no need to provide entertainment for literary
tea-parties by saying so.”
“All I ask,” returned Rose, “is that you shall give yourself time; that
you shall take no irrevocable step.” To which Cecily had responded by a
smile and a shrug of the shoulders.
She had Mayne’s letter. He had seen Mrs. Summers. He intended to be
ostensibly busied in getting together funds and volunteers for a new
exploring expedition, the progress of which was to be extensively
paragraphed. In the meantime, he told her, he simply waited. He was
in her hands. At any moment a summons would bring him to her. It
was a characteristic letter--terse, restrained, almost laconic in
tone. The letter of a man who would not plead, because, under the
circumstances, pleading seemed unfair; yet, after reading it, Cecily
had never so fully realized the strength and abidingness of his love
for her. She took the letter with her on her journeyings, and carried
it about with her. It was never absent from her thoughts. It was in the
background of her consciousness on the quay at Genoa, while she watched
the teams of white horses in their scarlet coats pulling lumbering
wagons. In thought she considered it, while with Diana she admired the
picturesqueness of the shuttered houses, festooned with fluttering
washing, or stooped to look inside the cave-like, fourteenth-century
shops, or climbed the many steep flights of steps to the upper town,
whence they looked upon an enchanting sea of roofs; roofs the color
of faded carnations, of orange lichen, of mushroom brown, each with
its tiny pergola of vines, its tub of oleander, or its orange tree.
It was with her in Florence, when she stood before the great pictures
in gallery or palace, when, at the sunset hour, the cathedral and the
exquisite campanile were suddenly turned to mother-of-pearl and roses
against the violet sky. It was with her here in Rome. To think of it,
to ponder over all that it implied, to force herself to come to some
decision, she had wandered to-day into the garden of the villa, glad to
be alone.
Diana, who had made friends with a lively party of American girls at
the hotel, had joined one of their excursions to Tivoli, and would not
be back till the evening. Cecily crossed the Piazza di Spagna, and
paused to look at the banks of flowers which, piled up at the foot of
the stately sweep of steps, make an exquisite foreground to one of the
most charming pictures in Rome. Like bees, the flower-sellers instantly
surrounded her, offering seashell-tinted and scarlet anemones, branches
of deep orange-colored roses, sprays of feathery mimosa, violets, and
quaint, flat little bouquets of pink rosebuds. She bought a bunch of
the latter, and freeing herself from the buzzing crowd, began to mount
the shallow, moss-grown steps, shaking her head smilingly at the little
_contadini_ models, with their elaborately picturesque rags, and
their proffered nosegays. At the top, she paused as usual to glance
over the beautiful ribbed roofs of the city, roofs which always made
her think of brown shells cast up by the sea of time; shells that had
suffered a sea-change.
Overhead in its blueness, was spread wide the “unattainable flower of
the sky,” that Roman sky which blossoms like a flower of Paradise; and
away to the right, as though floating in a blue ocean, stone pines
lifted their islands of green, soft as velvet, into the clear air.
Cecily was aware of all the beauty; she missed none of the thousand
appeals to the senses; the warmth, the fragrance of growing flowers,
the color, the richness. But her response was on the surface only.
Beneath it, her whole mind was a prey to doubt and indecision; that
state of consciousness which, out of the hundreds that can make of life
a hell for damned souls, is as capable as any of inflicting torture.
As Cecily passed through the iron gate leading into the garden of the
villa, and mounted the upward sloping path between the ilexes, she
would gladly have exchanged their mysterious darkness, the blue of the
sky, the pathetic beauty of the moss-grown statue at the end of the
path, the delicious sound of falling water, the flecks of sunshine on
the gravelled walk, for a back street in Clapham--and peace of mind.
At the top of the sharply zigzag path she paused by the barricade of
monthly roses on the brow of the hill to take breath and gaze once more
over the city at her feet.
It was all inexpressibly beautiful, but she turned away, blinded with
tears. She crossed the sunny square of garden in front of the villa
and sat down on a marble seat, behind which a rose tree clambered.
There were very few people about. One or two appeared from time to time
behind the parapet of the terrace leading to the upper garden, and
she could hear the voices of children in the ilex thickets below. But
practically she was alone in the sunshine, and her thoughts were, as
ever, busy with Mayne’s letter.
What should she do? For the thousandth weary time she asked herself the
same question. Did she, or did she not, love him? Passion for him she
had none. Not for the first time she found herself wishing ardently
that she had. At least it would simplify things; it would bring her
to a decision. Then, she told herself, she would not hesitate. She
reviewed the possible outcome of the situation. A legal separation--and
Dick banished to Africa? She had seen enough of the life of a young
woman living apart from her husband to make her view this consummation
with disfavor. And in her case there was the added disadvantage of
being to some extent a celebrity. She knew the sort of man she would
constantly be obliged to repel, and the necessity for such a task
sickened her. And life without Dick? Without his advice? Without the
comforting sense of his protection and care? An empty life, childless,
loveless, with none but intellectual needs to work for and gratify?
Her whole nature shrank from this. She had come to realize intensely
how to a woman the needs of the heart must ever stand first; how
success, fame, intellectual achievements are mere stop-gaps,
anæsthetics from which she is ever in danger of waking to a horrible,
dreary reality--a sense that she is indispensable to no one, that no
human being views her existence as the one supremely important fact in
life.
“Oh, we’re handicapped!--how we’re handicapped!” she cried to herself,
as she sat motionless in the sunshine. “Physically, through our
emotions--every way.... Wouldn’t it be better, saner, to spend the rest
of my life with Dick, even though I _don’t_ feel for him anything
of what I felt for Robert? At least he feels it for me. That’s
something. At least I could make one creature happy.” Some one had come
along the gravelled walk in front of the seat. She had not noticed his
approach till she became conscious of a shadow between her and the sun,
and saw with a vague astonishment its cause. A man was standing quite
close in front of her, looking down upon her. Raising her eyes, she met
Mayne’s.
She struggled to her feet, feeling curiously as though lead weights
were dragging her back.
He held out his hand. “I didn’t know you were in Rome,” he said,
briefly.
“But you? I thought you were in town?”...
“Yes. My old godfather is here. He’s dying, poor old chap, and he
thought I was going to Africa. He begged me to come and say good-bye.
He practically brought me up, you know, so I couldn’t----” He did not
finish the sentence; his eyes were straying hungrily over her face.
“Come! Let’s go up there,” he said, abruptly, nodding towards the upper
terrace.
Mechanically Cecily turned and walked at his side. They passed through
the gate and up the steps, to that terrace which gives upon the
beautiful avenue of ilexes leading to a further flight of moss-grown
steps.
The avenue was deserted. The rays of sunshine that pierced its roof
fell in tiny flecks upon the path. But for these specks of brightness,
the alley was a tunnel of cool green gloom. They entered it in silence.
“Mrs. Summers said you were in Florence,” began Mayne, at last.
“Yes, we’ve only been here a week. I haven’t written to Rose since we
left.”
He looked down at her. She was in white, as he liked best to see her.
All the long months she had been away, he remembered, he had always
pictured her in white. Her arm brushed his sleeve as they walked, and
he trembled from head to foot.
“Cecily,” he said, suddenly, and his voice trembled also, “what are you
going to do?”
She was silent, and he saw the color go from her face. They had reached
the foot of the crumbling steps by this time. Cecily noticed minutely
the ferns--hart’s-tongue and maiden-hair--that sprang in chink and
crevice, and, as she passed it, looked curiously at the pattern of
spotted white lichen with which each broken step was adorned. Now they
had emerged from the gloom of the roof of trees, into the blinding
sunshine in which the little sham-classic temple at the top was bathed.
There was no one in the walled-in enclosure. Cecily moved to the side
overlooking the Borghese Gardens, and sat down on the rough, sun-warmed
wall.
Mayne stood behind her. “Cecily,” he urged once more, “you mustn’t keep
me in suspense much longer.” There was a dangerous note in his voice.
She turned to him. “Oh, Dick!” she said in a voice that was almost a
cry; “I am so worried. If only I knew what to do!”
He stooped swiftly, and gathering her up in his arms, held her close,
while he kissed first her lips, then her throat, with an intensity of
passion which thrilled and communicated itself to her. When at last he
let her go, she too was trembling. After all, it was sweet to be loved
like this. She felt awakening in her the woman’s pride and triumph in
her power to rouse strong emotion in a man. And Dick loved her in all
the other ways, too. She could rely on him. He would never fail her.
Her lips moved. She meant to yield at once--to give him his answer now,
irrevocably.
Instead, she said, faintly, “I’ll write--to-night. Where are you
staying?”
He looked at her entreatingly a moment; then, feeling in his pocket for
a note-book, he scribbled an address on a leaf torn from it.
“Cecily!” he whispered as he gave it to her. “Cecily!”
Mechanically, as though urged by some force outside herself, Cecily
got up, and began to descend the steps. He followed her. They walked
back through the gloomy avenue in silence. Just before they reached the
terrace, he took her ungloved hand and put it to his lips.
“Will you let me go back alone?” she asked, under her breath.
“You wish it?”
“Yes, dear.”
He stepped back to let her pass, and as she did so, she looked up at
him with appealing eyes.
“I will write to-night, Dick,” she said, very gently.
* * * * *
She left him standing on the terrace, and found her way back through
the lower garden, down the Scala di Spagna, across the Piazza to the
hotel. Everything stood bathed in sunshine as in a dream. She had a
sense that all the people she passed were dream-figures. Everything had
become all at once unsubstantial, unreal, shadows of something else.
When she reached the hotel the hall porter put a packet of letters into
her hand. Most of them had been forwarded from Florence, as she noticed
in turning them over on her way up to her room. One of them was from
Rose.
Her bedroom, which looked south, was flooded with sunshine when she
entered. She lifted a basket-chair into the balcony, and sinking
into it, sat for some time with the letters in her lap. She felt no
inclination to open them. She did not want to break the sensation of
dreaming which lulled her senses, and banished all the care and worry
of the past months. It would be pleasant to sit like this in the
sunshine all the rest of her life; never to think, just to know that
she was being cared for, that her presence made the joy of another’s
life. And why not? Why not an easy, dreamy life in sunny lands, with
Dick?
Opposite to her, the old walls and roof of a monastery cut with its
irregular lines the brilliant sky. The gay, striped awning above a
vine-wreathed terrace at a lower level flapped gently in the breeze.
Beneath, the little courtyard garden was a tangle of oleanders in
tubs, of orange and lemon trees. And over all lay the sunshine. Cecily,
stretching her body lazily in the long wicker chair, instinctively
raised her arms towards the sky, as though to clasp its warmth, its
deliciousness. It was a long time before she thought of her letters,
and then she began to open the envelopes with indifference. None of
them were of any importance. She had left Rose’s till the last.
It began with news of the children, of herself, and went on to
information about various acquaintances. Then all at once, and quite
abruptly, it spoke of Robert. Cecily started when she read his name.
She had agreed with Rose that it should not be mentioned in their
correspondence. “Robert is back,” the letter ran. “He wrote to me a
day or two ago from the flat, and asked if he might come down for the
day. He came, and he looked shockingly ill and hopelessly miserable.
He came for news of you. I didn’t mention your name at first, till I
couldn’t stand it any longer. He followed me about with his eyes like
a dog, begging. Then at last we spoke of you. I don’t know what you
said before you went, but evidently he has no hope. He looked like my
Jim when he’s been naughty and thinks I’m not going to say good-night
to him. He was back at the flat, but I persuaded him to go away again
for a few days at least. He says he hates the sight of London. I hope
you still like Florence. How does Diana enjoy everything?...” Cecily
dropped the letter, leaving the latter pages unread.
Mechanically she turned her eyes towards the garden. All the
dream-feeling was gone. She was Robert’s wife. She knew the look that
Rose meant; she could see his face before her. Everything but that was
blotted out. Bending her head down upon her knees, she broke into a
passion of tears.
For hours she sat in her room, forgetting the time, forgetting
everything but the urgent need of getting home,--home to comfort some
one who had need of her.
Presently she rose, and, fetching her writing case, wrote two letters.
It was strange to feel no uncertainty, to be no longer racked with
doubt, to have no more vacillations. Her course now was plain; she felt
no more hesitation than a mother feels when she hears her child is ill.
Hours afterwards, when Diana came in, eager to recount the affairs of
the day, Cecily was still in her room.
The girl started as she opened the door, and her sister rose to meet
her.
“Diana,” Cecily began, “I’m going home to-morrow. If you like to stay I
think the Armstrongs would look after you----”
Diana sprang towards her as she staggered a little against the table.
“I suppose you’ve had nothing to eat!” she exclaimed practically. She
pushed her sister back into the chair, and rang the bell violently.
“We’ll have dinner up here,” she announced, taking the lead with
characteristic determination, “and then you can tell me all about it.
If you go to-morrow, I shall go too. Auntie says that wretched Brown
girl is making a dead set at Archie--she began directly he came home. I
shall go and stop it.”